I may or may not be able to keep this up. Firstly, I’m not sure anyone reads this, and second, time is kind of precious. I’m swamped!

But if I do I will try and focus as much or more on my Orthodox Faith as on politics and the world. Without God, cries for sanity in the world are a waste of time. Thus any efforts I have time for should be dedicated to that end.

Father Stephen is always profound. He is one of those truly gifted by God with the ability to communicate and teach..

We live in the modern world – a fact for which we have no antidote. It is the moment in history that is ours. Christians before us have lived in the Roman world, various pagan worlds, the Byzantine world, the world of "Holy Russia," but we are tasked by Divine Providence to live as Orthodox Christians in the modern world. It is a setting that has its own unique challenges and its own unique temptations. For Orthodox Christians who live in countri … Read More

Just out of curiosity I thought I would stop by and say hi. Does anyone now or did anyone in the past actually care for this blog? I’ve gotten no complaints that I stopped, and never had much interaction before that, so…

6/7/2010 – Robert Knight –
Sexual morality is over. That’s the conclusion of one of the smartest men in Washington, the estimable columnist George Will. On ABC’s “This Week” on May 30, Mr. Will agreed with colleague Matthew Dowd that apart from a few glitches, homosexuality will soon be a nonissue in the military. They are wrong, but let’s look at their argument.

The men cited young folks’ liberal attitudes and recent polls as evidence that morality is no longer a factor. Mr. Dowd: “It’s long been decided in the public’s mind. I think the Republicans are so far out of step on this…”

Mr. Will: “For people of Matt’s son’s generation, being gay is like being left-handed. … The Supreme Court has a famous phrase it used in some opinion, the evolving standards of decency that mark a maturing society. Clearly these are evolving, and the case is over, basically.”

This plunge into moral relativism could mean that Sodom and Gomorrah had evolved into a more “maturing society” than, say, Jerusalem under King David. Or America under Abraham Lincoln.

Not to be outdone, ABC correspondent Jake Tapper chimed in: “The case is over. But why is there such a fight by Republican officeholders? If you look at polling … the public is overwhelmingly supportive of lifting the ban. Conservatives support it. Republicans support it. White evangelicals support it. What’s going on with the Republicans in Congress?”

This is based on loaded polls by liberal media. But let’s go back to George Will, who gives the answer: “They’re not being very intelligent.”

Ah, that’s it. Those of us who believe that God created male and female and that sex outside marriage – adultery, fornication and homosexuality – is wrong and harmful, are just not being intelligent. It’s apparently not enough to love friends and family who are into homosexuality; we have to love the behavior that threatens their bodies and souls.

The four Joint Chiefs of Staff and the 1,163 retired generals and admirals who warn against lifting the ban are similarly not intelligent. Nor are the majority in the armed forces who oppose the change and will be guinea pigs for this experiment in sexual anarchy.

And what about the Creator of the Universe? It is God’s moral code that has undergirded Western society for more than 3,500 years. God’s intelligent design – marriage – is the glue that holds it together. Even Chinese philosopher Confucius called marriage “the foundation of civilization.” What a moron. If only he could have lived in our day and evolved.

What we are witnessing among the intelligentsia is a catastrophic case of groupthink: Because they all repeat the same thing, it must be true. They ignore biology, morality, history, common sense and grim health statistics because they are smarter than anyone.

NEW YORK – President Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court, Elena Kagan, once called a judge universally regarded as one of the most extreme liberal activist high court justices in history “my judicial hero.”

“He is the judge who has best advanced democracy, human rights, the rule of law and justice,” stated Kagan in September 2006 introductory remarks at a Harvard University award ceremony.

Kagan was referring to Aharon Barak, the retired president of the Supreme Court of Israel, who at the time was receiving the Peter Gruber Foundation 2006 Justice Prize at Harvard.

Barak has been recognized across the political spectrum as one of the most liberal activist judges.

Richard Goldstone, a left-leaning South African judge who infamously penned a United Nations report accusing Israel of war crimes, termed Barak “unashamedly what, in U.S. terms, would be regarded as an ‘activist judge.'”

Jerusalem Post columnist Caroline Glick commented that under Barak’s judicial leadership “the country was effectively transformed from a parliamentary democracy governed by law into a judicial tyranny governed by the preferences and prejudices of a fraternity of lawyers that Barak empowered.”

This is just stupid. This plainly says only that the banks haven’t filed as many as usual and not that things are better. Just because they haven’t filed on the millions that could be filed on doesn’t mean anything more than that have maxed out on what they can handle at once.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Millions of Americans are still likely to lose their homes in the coming years, but the foreclosure crisis is finally showing signs of subsiding.

The number of households facing foreclosure in April fell 2 percent from a year ago, the first annual decline in five years, RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday.

But the data aren’t all sunny. While the number of new delinquencies is dropping, the number of borrowers losing their homes is still rising. Banks seized a record 92,000 homes last month.

And there are millions more potential foreclosures ahead. Nearly 7.4 million borrowers, or 12 percent of all households with a mortgage, had missed at least one month of payments or were in foreclosure as of March, according to Lender Processing Services Inc., a mortgage data research firm.

But Dr. Price, who is spearheading efforts to explore two competing locations for Noah’s Ark, sent an e-mail dispatch to supporters with his personal take on the alleged find, asserting the structure is a hoax perpetrated by a Kurdish guide and his partners to extort money from Chinese evangelical Christians.

“I was the archaeologist with the Chinese expedition in the summer of 2008 and was given photos of what they now are reporting to be the inside of the Ark,” he wrote in his message dated April 26.

The photos were reputed to have been taken off site near the Black Sea, but the film footage the Chinese now have was shot on location on Mt. Ararat. In the late summer of 2008 ten Kurdish workers hired by Parasut, the guide used by the Chinese, are said to have planted large wood beams taken from an old structure in the Black Sea area (where the photos were originally taken) at the Mt. Ararat site. In the winter of 2008 a Chinese climber taken by Parasut’s men to the site saw the wood, but couldn’t get inside because of the severe weather conditions.

During the summer of 2009 more wood was planted inside a cave at the site. The Chinese team went in the late summer of 2009 (I was there at the time and knew about the hoax) and was shown the cave with the wood and made their film. As I said, I have the photos of the inside of the so-called Ark (that show cobwebs in the corners of rafters – something just not possible in these conditions) and our Kurdish partner in Dogubayazit (the village at the foot of Mt. Ararat) has all of the facts about the location, the men who planted the wood, and even the truck that transported it.

To my knowledge, the Chinese took no professional archaeologist or geologist who could verify or document the wood or the structure … .

In the wake of the e-mail’s circulation online, a subsequent statement was issued tonight which stated, “While Dr. Price does not retract his statements, he wants the public to understand that these only represent his opinion as informed by his experience with the Kurdish guide and the Chinese and other sources in eastern Turkey.”

It went on to say Price “urges the Chinese-Turkish team to make their collected samples from the structure available to scientists and scholars for comparative analysis.While he has reservations about the nature and procedure of the Chinese-Turkish expedition and the artifacts related to it, he believes that a decision concerning this matter must wait until independent examinations of the site and the structure can be made and published.”

The left and those who profit off of the idea of racism have propagated the idea that there is some big conspiracy to disenfranchise black people in this country. This guy here is a fool. Sure there are racists, but I suspect nowadays that most racism is the opposite of what people think. This guy is certainly a racist.

It looks like the circus and childish antics are rearing their ugly head once again in Albany.

It started as an angry blow-up, and then it escalated. A state senator with a history of anger management issues says his race-based rant was part of his fight against the “evil of white supremacy.”

Brooklyn State Senator Kevin Parker is a well-documented hothead, and on Wednesday he took to the airwaves to unapologetically defend his latest shouting match.

“It’s par for the course for what we have to do in Albany – fighting the forces of evil,” Senator Parker said.

Parker shockingly identified the “enemies” he’s fighting as other senators.

That followed a free-for-all shouting match in Albany Tuesday where Parker heatedly objected to the questions asked by a white senator, John DeFrancisco of Syracuse, of a black nominee to the New York State Power Authority.

“John, you are totally out of order, you are out of order,” Parker shouted. “How dare you? You racist people in here.”

A damning health care report generated by actuaries at the Health and Human Services (HHS) Department was given to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius more than a week before the health care vote. She hid the report from the public until a month after democrats rammed their nationalized health care bill through Congress.

The results from the report were troubling. The report released by Medicare and Medicaid actuaries shows that medical costs will skyrocket rising $389 billion 10 years. 14 million will lose their employer-based coverage. Millions of Americans will be left without insurance. And, millions more may be dumped into the already overwhelmed Medicaid system. 4 million American families will be hit with tax penalties under this new law.

Of course, these were ALL things that President Obama and Democratic leaders assured us would not happen.

What a liberal means by ‘nothing is off the table‘ is that they will consider as many new ways as possible to get more money out of us. Very rarely does a liberal cut spending unless they are shorting the military.

President Obama said Tuesday that “everything has to be on the table” as his newly appointed debt commission goes to work, but he would not entertain questions about whether tax increases, included a value-added tax, or spending cuts will get serious consideration.

“We’re not playing that game,” the president said.

Among the proposals that have generated attention recently is the idea of a value-added tax, a form of a national sales tax. Though Obama has indicated an openness to considering the tax, he said Tuesday that he would not indulge in any speculation.

This is just ridiculous. Racist is scattered in there randomly, and the ‘migrant workers’ (read here illegal aliens) are portrayed as victims of some sort of oppression. Fools! Idiots! Only a total moron would think that common sense immigration laws are oppressive or racist. They are there specifically to avoid the kinds of problems we have right now – specifically economic, although you also see a lot of problems with immigrants now who do not assimilate at all and have no interest in our way of life. They just want to get paid. And wanting to provide for your family is a fine thing. Wanting to do so and going about it legally is even finer.

Others, like Mexican day laborer Jesus Aguilar, 52, say the measure leaves them few options but to leave Arizona and try their luck elsewhere.

“Since the law says that people hiring undocumented day laborers will get fined, no-one wants to (hire) us,” said Aguilar, who early on Monday was among some two dozen migrants touting for landscaping and building work at a day labor site in north Phoenix.

“We are thinking of going to Utah or New Mexico … Here it is just too racist,” he added.

‘CREATE HAVOC’

The law has raised fears that Hispanics will be racially profiled and police will actively hunt down illegal immigrants, who are estimated to number about 10.8 million in the nation and are the backbone of the shadow economy.

It is also expected to spark a legal challenge and has become a hot issue in the run-up to the mid-term congressional elections in November, when Democrats will defend their majorities in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.

The new Arizona state law seeks to “discourage and deter the unlawful entry and presence of aliens and economic activity” in the desert state, and Hispanic activists say it is already having a marked impact.

“What is a father to do if, in 90 days, they can be stopped by any police officer and questioned … when their family is at home and their kids in school?” said Elias Bermudez, the founder of Phoenix nonprofit Immigrants Without Borders.

“That’s going to create havoc, so a lot of them are saying, ‘Look, before they pick me up, I’d rather leave the state of Arizona either to another state or back home,'” he added.

Migrants who spoke to Reuters on Monday said they would bide their time and see how the law is implemented in the next weeks and months before making their moves.

During that time, Roldan said he and his wife Gladys would stay home as much as possible, to further minimize their exposure to police, and would decide later whether to move to another state.

“We have already got some boxes ready … so we are prepared,” he added.

For Mexican day laborer Rodolfo Espinoza, meanwhile, it was simply time to go back home to work as a fisherman on the Pacific coast of northwest Mexico, where he has a wife and four children.

“This new law gives us no other option than to leave … I’m going back to Mexico, where I feel more comfortable,” he added.

Idiots. I fail to see the logic in the protests. Sometimes we have to accept an inconvenience for the greater good. Were I an immigrant, I would actually appreciate the checks. Without them the country that I wanted so badly to be a part of would more than likely cease to exist as it is overwhelmed. Why is this even an issue? Are people that simple? Really?

PHOENIX (AP) – The furor over Arizona’s new law cracking down on illegal immigrants grew Monday as opponents used refried beans to smear swastikas on the state Capitol, civil rights leaders demanded a boycott of the state, and the Obama administration weighed a possible legal challenge.

Activists are planning a challenge of their own, hoping to block the law from taking effect by arguing that it encroaches on the federal government’s authority to regulate immigration and violates people’s constitutional rights by giving police too much power.

The measure – set to take effect in late July or early August – would make it a crime under state law to be in the U.S. illegally. It directs state and local police to question people about their immigration status if there is reason to suspect they are illegal.

“If you look or sound foreign, you are going to be subjected to never-ending requests for police to confirm your identity and to confirm your citizenship,” said Alessandra Soler Meetze, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, which is exploring legal action.